The Authoress of the Odyssey, by Samuel Butler

Chapter xvi

Conclusion.

Before I quit my subject, I should perhaps answer a question which the reader has probably long
since asked himself. I mean, how it is conceivable that considerations so obvious as those urged in the foregoing
Chapters should have been overlooked by so many capable students for so many hundreds of years, if there were any truth
in them. For they lie all of them upon the surface; they are a mere washing in the Jordan and being clean; they require
nothing but that a person should read the “Odyssey” as he would any other book, noting the physical characters
described in the Scherian and Ithacan scenes, and looking for them on some West coast of the Mediterranean to the West
of Greece.

The answer is that the considerations which I have urged have been overlooked because, for very obvious reasons, it
never occurred to any one to look for them. “Do you suppose, then,” more than one eminent scholar has said to me
directly or indirectly, “that no one has ever read the ‘Odyssey’ except yourself?” I suppose nothing of the kind, and
know that it was only possible for the truth when once lost (as it soon would be on the establishment of the Phœnicians
at Drepanum) to be rediscovered, when people had become convinced that the “Odyssey” was not written by the writer of
the “Iliad.” This idea has not yet been generally accepted for more than a hundred years, * if so long, but until it was seized and held firmly, no one was likely to suspect that
the “Odyssey” could have come from Sicily, much less that it could have been written by a woman, for there is not one
line in the “Iliad” which even hints at the existence of Sicily, or makes the reader suspect the author to have been a woman, while there are any number of passages which seem absolutely prohibitive of
any other opinion than that the writer was a man, and a very strong one.

Stolberg in the last century, and Colonel Mure in this, had the key in the lock when they visited Trapani, each of
them with the full conviction that the Cyclops incident, and the hunting the goats, should be placed on Mt. Eryx and
the island of Favognana — but they did not turn it. Professor Freeman, Schliemann, and Sir H. Layard, all of them
visited Trapani and its immediate neighbourhood either as students or excavators, and failed to see that there was as
splendid a prize to be unburied there without pick and shovel, outlay, or trouble of any kind, as those of Nineveh,
Mycene, and Hissarlik — and why? Because they were still hampered by the long association of the “Iliad” and “Odyssey”
as the work of the same person. Knowing that the “Iliad” could hardly have been written elsewhere than in the Northern
half of the West coast of Asia Minor, if would never occur to them to look for the “Odyssey” in a spot so remote as
Trapani. They probably held it to be the work of some prehistoric Herodotus, who would go on from scene to scene
without staying longer than he could help in any one place, instead of feeling sure, as I believe they should have
done, that it was the work of one who was little likely to have travelled more than a very few miles from her own home.
Moreover, Admiralty charts are things of comparatively recent date, and I do not think any one would have been likely
to have run the “Odyssey” to ground without their help.

But however this may be, I do not doubt that the habit of ascribing the “Odyssey” to Homer has been the main reason
of the failure to see the obvious in connection with it. Surely it is time our eminent Iliadic and Odyssean scholars
left off misleading themselves and other people by including the “Odyssey” in their “Introductions” to the work of
“Homer.” It was permissible to do this till within recent years; anything else, indeed, would have been pedantic, but
what would have been pedantic a hundred years ago, is slovenly and unscholarly now.

Turning from her commentators to the authoress herself, I am tempted to wonder whether she would be more pleased or
angry could she know that she had been so long mistaken for a man — and that man Homer. It would afford her an
excellent opportunity for laughing at the dullness of man. Angry, however, as she would no doubt be, she could hardly
at the same time help being flattered, and would perhaps console herself by reflecting that poets as great as she was
are bound to pay the penalty of greatness in being misunderstood.

Horace tells us that mediocrity in a poet is forbidden alike by gods, men, and publishers, but, whether forbidden or
no, there are a good many mediocre poets who are doing fairly well. So far as I can see, indeed, gods, men, and more
particularly publishers, will tolerate nothing in a poet except mediocrity, and if a true poet by some rare accident
slips in among the others, it is because gods and publishers’ readers did not find him out until it was too late to
stop him. Horace must have known perfectly well that he was talking nonsense.

And after all it is well that things are as they are; for the mediocre poet, though he may hang about for many
years, does in the end die, or at any rate become such a mere literary Struldbrug as to give plain people no trouble,
whereas the true poet will possess himself of us, and live on in us whether we will or no, and unless the numbers of
such people were severely kept in check they would clog the wheels of the world. Half a dozen first-class poets in
prose or verse are as many as the world can carry in any comfort; twenty Shakespeares, twenty Homers, twenty Nausicaas
would make literature impossible, yet we may be sure that every country in every century could yield two or three
first-class writers, if genius were to be known at once, and fostered by those who alone know how to foster it. Genius
is an offence; like all other offences it must needs come, but woe to that man or woman through whom it comes, for he
or she must pass through the Scylla and Charybdis of being either torn in pieces on the one hand, or so misunderstood
on the other as to make the slipping through with life in virtue of such misrepresentation more mortifying than death
itself.

Do what we may we cannot help it. Dead mind like dead body must, after a decent interval, be buried out of our sight
if living mind is to have fair play, and it might perhaps not be a bad thing if our great educational establishments
had more of the crematorium and less of the catacomb about them than they have at present. Our notions of intellectual
sanitation are deplorably imperfect, and unless the living become more jealous of letting dead mind remain unconsumed
in their system, a fit of intellectual gout must ere long supervene, which, if not fatal, will still be excruciatingly
painful. Since, therefore, there are such insuperable difficulties in the way of eliminating geniuses when we have once
absorbed them, and since also, do what we may, we can no more detect the one genius who may be born among a multitude
of good average children, than Herod could detect the King of the Jews among the babes of Bethlehem, we have no course
but to do much as Herod did, and lay violent hands upon all young people till we have reduced every single one of them
to such mediocrity as may be trusted to take itself off sooner or later. To this end we have established schools and
schoolmen; nor is it easy to see how we could more effectually foster that self-sufficiency which does so much towards
helping us through the world, and yet repress any exuberance of originality or independence of thought which may be
prejudicial to its possessor during his own life, and burdensome to posterity when he is dead and gone.

Obviously wise, however, and necessary as our present system is, we nevertheless grumble at it. We would have any
number of first-class geniuses in art, literature and music, and yet have plenty of elbow room for ourselves. Our
children too; they cannot show too many signs of genius, but at the same time we blame them if they do not get on in
the world and make money as genius next to never does. Like the authoress of the “Odyssey” we are always wanting to
have things both ways; we would have others be forgotten, and yet not be forgotten ourselves; when we have shuffled off
this mortal coil, we would fain shuffle on another that shall be at once less coil and less mortal, in the good
thoughts of coming generations, but if this desire is so universal as to be called natural, it
is one which the best and sanest of us will fight against rather than encourage; such people will do their work as well
and cheerfully as they can, and make room for others with as little fuss as possible when they have had their day.

If, however, any man resents the common course of nature and sets himself to looking upon himself and cursing his
fate that he was not born to be of the number of them that enter into life eternal even in this world, let him console
himself by reflecting that until he is long dead, there is no certain knowing whether he is in life or no, and also
that though he prove to be an immortal after all, he cannot escape the treatment which he is the more sure to meet with
according as he is the more immortal — let alone the untold misery which his works will inflict upon young people.

If ever a great classic could have been deterred from writing by a knowledge of how posterity would treat her, the
writer of the “Odyssey” should have been so, for never has poem more easy to understand failed more completely of being
understood. If she was as lovely as I should like to think her, was ever sleeping beauty hidden behind a more
impenetrable hedge of scholasticism? How could it be otherwise? The “Odyssey,” like the “Iliad,” has been a school book
for nearly 3000 years, and what more cruel revenge could dullness take on genius? What has the erudition of the last
2500 years done for the “Iliad” and the “Odyssey” but to emend the letter in small things and to obscure the spirit in
great ones?

There was indeed, as I said in my opening Chapter, a band of scholars a century or two before the birth of Christ
who refused to see the “Iliad” and “Odyssey” as the work of the same person, but erudition snubbed them and snuffed
them out so effectually that for some 2000 years they were held to have been finally refuted. Can there be any more
scathing satire on the value of scholastic criticism? It seems as though Minerva had shed the same darkness over both
the poems that she shed over Ulysses, that they might go in and out among eminent Homeric scholars from generation to
generation, and none should see them.

The world does indeed know little of its greatest men and women, and bitterly has it been reproached for its want of
penetration, but there are always two sides, and it should be remembered that its greatest men and women commonly know
very little of the world in its more conventional aspects. They are continually flying in the face of all that we
expect of greatness, and they never tell us what they are; they do not even think that they are great; if they do we
may be sure that they are mistaken; how then can we be expected to appreciate people correctly till we have had plenty
of time to think them over?

And when we have thought them over, how little have our canons of criticism to do with the verdict which we in the
end arrive at. Look at the “Odyssey.” Here is a poem in which the hero and heroine have been already married many years
before it opens; from the first page to the last there is no young couple in love with one another, there is in fact
nothing amatory in the poem, for though the suitors are supposed to be madly in love with Penelope, they never say or
do anything that carries conviction as to their being so. We accept the fact, as we do the sagacity of Ulysses, because
we are told it, not because we see it. The interest of the poem ostensibly turns mainly on the revenge taken by a bald
middle-aged gentleman, whose little remaining hair is red, on a number of young men who have been eating him out of
house and home, while courting his supposed widow.

Moreover, this subject, so initially faulty, is treated with a carelessness in respect of consistency and
plausibility, an ignorance of commonly known details, and a disregard of ordinary canons which it would not be easy to
surpass, and yet, such is the irony of art that it is not too much to say that there is only one poem which can be
decisively placed above it. If the “Odyssey” enforces one artistic truth more than another, it is that living permanent
work in literature (and the same holds good for art and music) can only be done by those who are either above, or
below, conscious reference to any rules or canons whatsoever — and in spite of Shakespeare, Handel, and Rembrandt, I
should say that on the whole it is more blessed to be below than above. For after all it is not
the outward and visible signs of what we read, see, or hear, in any work, that bring us to its feet in prostration of
gratitude and affection; what really stirs us is the communion with the still living mind of the man or woman to whom
we owe it, and the conviction that that mind is as we would have our own to be. All else is mere clothes and
grammar.

As regards the mind of the writer of the “Odyssey” there is nothing in her work which impresses me more profoundly
than the undercurrent of melancholy which I feel throughout it. I do not mean that the writer was always, or indeed
generally, unhappy; she was often, at any rate let us hope so, supremely happy; nevertheless there is throughout her
work a sense as though the world for all its joyousness was nevertheless out of joint — an inarticulate indefinable
half pathos, half baffled fury, which even when lost sight of for a time soon re-asserts itself. If the “Odyssey” was
not written without laughter, so neither was it without tears. Now that I know the writer to have been a woman, I am
ashamed of myself for not having been guided to my conclusion by the exquisitely subtle sense of weakness as well as of
strength that pervades the poem, rather than by the considerations that actually guided me.

The only approach to argument which I have seen brought forward to show that the “Odyssey” must have been written by
a man, consists in maintaining that no woman could have written the scene in which Ulysses kills the suitors. I cannot
see this; to me it seems rather that no man could have brought himself to disregard probability with so little
compunction; moreover a woman can kill a man on paper as well as a man can, and with the exception of the delightful
episode in which Ulysses spares the lives of Phemius and Medon, the scene, I confess, appears to me to be the most
mechanical and least satisfactory in the whole poem. The real obstacle to a general belief that the “Odyssey” was
written by a woman is not anything that can be found in the poem, but lies, as I have already said, in the long
prevalence of an opinion that it was written by the same person as the “Iliad” was. The age and respectability of this
opinion, even though we have at length discarded it, will not allow us to go beyond ascribing
the “Odyssey” to another man — we cannot jump all at once to the view that it was not by a man at all. A certain
invincible scholasticism prevents us from being able to see what we should see at once if we would only read the poem
slowly and without considering anything that critics have said concerning it.

This, however, is not an easy thing to do. I know very well that I should never have succeeded in doing it if I had
not passed some five-and-thirty rebellious years during which I never gave the “Odyssey” so much as a thought. The poem
is so august: it is hallowed by the veneration of so many ages; it is like my frontispiece, so mysterious, so
imperfect, and yet so divinely beyond all perfection; it has been so long associated with the epic poem which stands
supreme — for if the “Odyssey” be the Monte Rosa of literature, the “Iliad” must, I suppose, for ever remain as the
Mont Blanc; who can lightly vivisect a work of such ineffable prestige as though it were an overlooked parvenu
book picked up for a few pence at a second hand book stall? Lightly, no, but inexorably, yes, if its natural health and
beauty are to be restored by doing so.

One of our most accomplished living scholars chided with me in this sense a year or two ago. He said I was ruthless.
“I confess,” he said, “I do not give much heed to the details on which you lay so much stress: I read the poem not to
theorise about it, but to revel in its amazing beauty.”

It would shock me to think that I have done anything to impair the sense of that beauty which I trust I share in
even measure with himself, but surely if the “Odyssey” has charmed us as a man’s work, its charm and wonder are
infinitely increased when we see it as a woman’s. Still more must it charm us when we find the writer to be an old
friend, and see no inconsiderable part of her work as a reflection of her own surroundings.

Have we, then, a right in sober seriousness so to find her? I have shown that in the earliest known ages of Greek
literature poetesses abounded, and gained a high reputation. I have shown that by universal consent the domestic and
female interest in the “Odyssey” predominates greatly over the male. I have shown that it was
all written in one place, and if so — even were there no further reasons for thinking so — presumably by one hand: I
have shown that the writer was extremely jealous for the honour of woman, so much so as to be daunted by no
impossibilities when trying to get rid of a story that she held to be an insult to her sex. These things being so, is
it too much to ask the reader to believe that the poem was not written, as Bentley held, by a man for women, but for
both men and women, by one who was herself a woman?

And now as I take leave of the reader, I would say that if when I began this work I was oppressed with a sense of
the hopelessness of getting Homeric scholars to take it seriously and consider it, I am even more oppressed and
dismayed when I turn over its pages and see how certain they are to displease many whom I would far rather conciliate
than offend. What can it matter to me where the “Odyssey” was written, or whether it was written by a man or a woman?
From the bottom of my heart I can say truly that I do not care about the way in which these points are decided, but I
do care, and very greatly, about knowing which way they are decided by sensible people who have considered what I have
urged in this book. I believe I have settled both points sufficiently, but come what may I know that my case in respect
of them is amply strong enough to justify me in having stated it. And so I leave it.

262:* I see that my grandfather, Dr. Butler, of Shrewsbury,
accepts it in his Antient Geography, published in 1813, but I do not know where he got if from.

Index

Nothing will be Indexed which can be found readily by referring to the Table of Contents.

Alcinous, and Arēte, their family history, 34, 35; proposes that Ulysses should stay and marry Nausicaa, 37; promises to give Ulysses a gold cup, but never gives it, nor yet his talent of gold,
40; tells the Phæacians of Neptune’s threat, 41, 58; Alcinous, Ulysses, Menelaus and Nestor,
all drawn from the same person, 115

Gladstone, the Right Hon. W. E., his canons as regards the text of “Iliad” and “Odyssey,” xi; the “systematic and comprehensive” study of Homer still young, 5, 6; contrasts the “Iliad” and “Odyssey,” 106; on Clytemnestra, 117; on
the time when Homer wrote, 216

Helen, coming down to dinner at the house of Menelaus, 25; mixes
Nepenthe in the wine, 26, 144; outside the wooden horse, 144; her
penitence for the wrong that Venus had done her, 144; her present of a
bridal dress to Telemachus, 150

Homer, his infinite subtlety, 216; the authoress of the “Odyssey”
was angry with him, 247; why the writer of the “Odyssey” let him so
severely alone, 250, 251; protest against Introductions to Homer, which include the “Odyssey.” 263

Ithaca, drawn from Trapani and its neighbourhood, 165 drawn from the
island of Marettimo as well as from Trapani, 172; “all highest up in
the sea,” sketch of, 178

Jebb, Prof., the 1892 edition of his Introduction to Homer, xviii; his Introduction to Homer,
3; his quotation from Bentley, 4; on Bentley’s not seeing that the “Odyssey” was of later date than the “Iliad,” 5; on the house of Ulysses, 15,
16; and the date of the “Odyssey,” 210; mentioned, 219, 233, 234, 249, 252

Menelaus, Ulysses, Alcinous, and Nestor, all from the same person, 115; the collapse of his splendour in Book xv., 139; he used to sell wine, 139; his frank
bourgeoisie, 139; his fussiness, 139; why made to come back on the day of Ægisthus’s funeral feast, 236

Minerva, not an easy person to recognise, and had deserted Ulysses for a long time, 59, 257, 258; Ulysses upbraids her for not telling Telemachus about his return, 60; her opinion of Penelope, 134, 135; her singular arrangements for Telemachus, 140; Ulysses remonstrates with her, 141;
sending Telemachus a West wind to take him from Ithaca to Pylos, 199;
her total absence in Books ix.-xii. apologised for, 257, 258

Mixing-bowl, the, in an angle of the cloisters, 88; Phemius lays his
lyre down near the, and near the approach to the trap-door, 94

Nausicaa, her dream, and going to the wash, 31, 32; her meeting with Ulysses, 32-34; the ill-natured gossip of her fellow townspeople, 33; her farewell to Ulysses, 41; the most
probable authoress, 206208

Penelope, her web, 21, 129; gets presents out of the suitors, 77;
scandalous versions of her conduct in ancient writers, 125; she
protests too much, 126; did she ever try snubbing or boring, 130; Minerva’s opinion of her, 134, 135; and the upset bath, 152; gloating over the luxury of woe, 152; not a satisfactory guardian of the estate, 153; tells her story to Ulysses before Ulysses tells his to her, 157

Polyphemus, and his cave, drawn from life, 147, 148; his system of milking, 148; his cave
still called la grotto di Polifemo, 188; the rocks he threw,
Asinelli and Formiche, 189; had two eyes,
191: and Conturràno, 191, 192

Suitors, the, how many from each island, 68; they are also the people
who were sponging on Alcinous, 122; they cannot be perfect lovers and
perfect spongers at the same time, 127; their version of Penelope’s
conduct, 128, 129

Telemachus, lectured by Minerva, 120; and by Penelope, 121; the two great evils that have fallen on his house, 122; only twelve years old when Ulysses went to Hades, 133; his alarm about his property, 135,
136; did not tip Eteoneus, 150

Thucydides, and “Phocians of those from Troy,” 4, 5, 222, 223; on the Cyclopes and Læstrygonians, 184;
substantially in accord with the writer of the “Odyssey,” 221;
biassed in favour of the Corfu Drepane rather than the Sicilian Drepanum, 226

Tiresias, his prophecy, and warning about the cattle of the Sun, 49,
50, 254, 255, 256

Ulysses, fastens his chest with a knot that Circe had taught him, 258; his deep sleep, 173, 253, 254; upbraids Minerva for not
telling Telemachus about his impending return, 60, 141; and Argus, 72, 151; warns Amphinomus, 76; rebukes
Eurymachus, 78; he and Telemachus remove the armour, 79, 155; his brooch, 80, 227; having his feet washed by
Euryclea, 81, 152;
compared to a paunch cooking before a fire, 83, 153; his bedroom, surmise that the maids were hanged all round it, 98; interview with Laertes in the garden, 101,
102; eating with Dolius, 102, 156; his farewell speeches to the
Phæacians, and to Queen Arēte, 108; his main grievance a money one,
109; he, Alcinous, Menelaus, and Nestor, all drawn from the same
person, x15; always thankless, 150; why not allowed to see either Favognana or the Scherian coast, 188, 197, 198; house of, and that of Alcinous, 205,
206